Chris Blattman

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Maps that changed the world

Businessman Charles Booth was sceptical about a claim in 1885 that a quarter of Londoners lived in extreme poverty, so he employed people to investigate.

They found the true figure was 30 per cent. The findings were entered onto a ‘Master Map’ using seven colour categories, from black for ‘Lowest class, semi-criminal’ to gold for wealthy.
The authorities were terrified into action, and the first council houses were built soon afterwards.

Map of London poverty

Peter Barber, Head of Map Collections at the British Library, gives us 10 maps that changed the world. That is number 6.

Number 5? Google Earth.

Via kottke.org.

3 Responses

  1. Charles Booth is also seen as the father of the first “poverty line” (see John Mills study of 100 years of UK poverty and policy research published by JRF) in coming to the conclusion that 30% of his fellow Londoners did in deed live in extreme poverty.

  2. Oh god, not the Peters Projection. I would hope the head of Map Collections at the British Library would be a bit more critical and sophisticated than that.

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